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Gradual Hate

Gradual Hate: Gradual Hate arose as a personal project by the hand of Miguel in 2005, although it didn't begin to materialize until 2006, when the work really began to move. At first, the early themes of Gradual Hate were an attempt at the electro world on the part of Miguel, since as a composer he had already touched upon many genres, such as dark ambient, neo-folk, neo-classical, experimental (The Lietech Project), and mainly rock, since his external role to the public is that of guitarist. The first compositions had already taken the direction of what would be the present sound of Gradual Hate, that is, without the crossovers and sounds so overused at the moment, and contributing a more personal sound with influences of the early '90s, if you want to make a comparison. We think that at the moment there is an excess of democratization of the media, and too many bands use the same sounds, copying each other and contributing very little to the scene. In 2006 Avencio entered as our keyboard player and the band's image designer, beginning to move the work seriously with Asphyxiated World, our first work.

Words and vocals on several of the songs on your album are credited to someone named Carlos. What is his role in Gradual Hate, and is he still involved in the band?

Gradual Hate: Carlos participated as a singer in Gradual Hate. He had a common project with Miguel. It was called Woman's Broken Hands, a musical project with influences from such styles as neo-classical, cabaret, and even dark folk. We offered to have him sing in Gradual Hate, and he accepted. We like Carlos' voice, but he is not involved with the band; he is just a good friend.

Asphyxiated World has a very classic sound. What bands or artists have had the most influence on your music?

Gradual Hate: The bands that we like are Nine Inch Nails, Der Prager Handgriff, Placebo Effect, Project Pitchfork, The Invincible Spirit, Leæther Strip, Serpents...but they aren't really our mirror. Our composition is totally free within the context that we want to give it; we look for the raw and authentic sound of long ago, and we do it without the absurd loops so overused at the moment, looking for more melody and harmony and escaping the linearity of present electro.

You use guitars in your live show. How important an element are guitars on the album? Are the guitars on the album real or sampled?

Gradual Hate: They are real guitars, of course; we don't discard the idea of making themes with guitars. For us, they are another element within our music. Actually, the guitar used is a Gibson SG and the amplifier is a Diezel that we use in live performances to strengthen some of our themes. What we wanted to do, starting off with dark electro, was to give to the themes a more epic structure, to count on songs with a beginning and an ending. Our themes are not too long; perhaps they even depart from purist elektro or the present scene in that aspect. We use the machines like an element that offers a more aggressive form of sound, colder but more forceful, than fits perfectly with what we mean to say.

In addition to the expected songs and videos, your Web site also features political manifestos, and you quote Michel Foucault in the liner notes to your album. What are your interests in political and psychological theory, and how do you express them in your music?

Gradual Hate: It's all based around the construction of the modern man, with his achievements and his failures, where we are at this moment and how it affects our way of life. In our manifesto, we examine the manipulation, in the media as much as the political arena, of the progressive taming and death of the culture. It's an alert call to the new citizen, who lives sedated.

Like many industrial artists, you use such imagery as military uniforms and gas masks in your look. How does that imagery tie in with your political interests?

Gradual Hate: The image is the first blow in a conceptual work; photographies of shelters, people protecting themselves with gas masks...it's part of the metaphor of a dehumanized man, able to create a situation in which you even can't breathe freely, in which you depend on synthetic and unnatural agents to survive, or the metaphor of the alienation of our lifestyle, surrounded by objects that give passing happiness to us—mortgages, cars, vacations—but in the end enslave us and asphyxiate us, the trash of the modern world for the consumerist lamb. We want to transmit all of this with our images and with our lyrics, so we adopted an industrial aesthetic even at the risk of creating misunderstanding.

Asphyxiated World includes a collaboration with Kenji Siratori on 'Reptilian Control.' Can you tell us a little about that song? How did that collaboration come about?

Gradual Hate: Kenji Siratori belongs to the Japanese bizarre alternative movement. He is a writer who practices non-linear literature in William Burroughs' style, in an experimental way. His style is cyberpunk, and he has collaborated with a lot of artists, such as Apoptose, Nordvargr and David Lynch, among others, always in a risky and anti-commercial way. His novel Blood Electric was recommended by David Bowie as a fundamental work in this strange movement. He made contact with us even before he signed with our label. It has been very interesting to work with him. We are developing new songs around his voice reciting in Japanese. Maybe it will sound different than our first album, because the theme is so different, but in any case we are happy with the result.

What other artists would you most like to work with?

Gradual Hate: This is a very difficult question! With such great artists as Trent Reznor, Peter Murphy, David Gilmour...

Now that your new album is out, what are your plans for the future?

Gradual Hate: We will publish an album with Kenji Siratori in March of this year. The album's name will be Spoken Word, and soon we will start to work on our next album.